After the founding of the people's Republic of China in 1949, it adhered to independence and self-reliance and gradually carried out foreign economic and trade exchanges. However, restricted by the international political environment and the domestic planned economic system at that time, the development of foreign trade was relatively slow. In 1978, China entered a new period of reform and opening up. Vigorously developing foreign trade has become an important way for China to accelerate modernization, change its backwardness, promote economic development and improve its comprehensive national strength. The total volume of goods trade ranks among the top in the world. In 1978, China's total import and export of goods was only 20.6 billion US dollars, ranking 32nd in the world trade in goods, accounting for less than 1%. In 2010, China's total imports and exports of goods reached US $2974 billion, an increase of 143 times over 1978, with an average annual growth of 16.8%. It has become the largest exporter and the second largest importer of goods in the world for two consecutive years. Fundamental changes have taken place in the structure of trade in goods. In the 1980s, China's export commodity structure changed from primary products to industrial manufactured products, and in the 1990s, from light textile products to mechanical and electrical products. Since the beginning of the new century, the export proportion of high-tech products represented by electronics and information technology has been expanding. In addition to state-owned enterprises, foreign trade operators also include foreign-invested enterprises and private enterprises. At present, the total import and export volume of the latter two has exceeded that of state-owned enterprises. From the 1980s to the beginning of this century, China's processing trade flourished and became half of foreign trade. Form an all-round and diversified import and export market pattern. After the reform and opening up, China has developed foreign trade in an all-round way and established trade relations with most countries and regions in the world. Trading partners have grown from dozens of countries and regions in 1978 to 231 countries and regions at present. The European Union, the United States, ASEAN, Japan and BRICs countries have become China's major trading partners. Since the new century, China's trade with emerging markets and developing countries has continued to grow rapidly. The international competitiveness of trade in services has been continuously enhanced. After joining the world trade organization, China's service trade has entered a new stage of development, with rapid expansion of scale, gradual optimization of structure and ranking in the forefront of the world. Trade in services in tourism, transportation and other fields grew steadily, while cross-border services in construction, communications, insurance, finance, computer and information services, royalties and royalties, consulting and other fields, as well as undertaking service outsourcing, grew rapidly. Together with domestic investment and consumption, foreign trade has become the three engines of China's economic growth.